Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [136]
“APA 17, hey? You’re sure that’s the ship they’re supposed to come from?”
“That’s what the orders said, sir. Jacob Group Four from APA 17.”
“Kay. Let’s get over to APA 17. Standard speed. You keep the conn.”
The captain vanished behind the bridgehouse. Willie stalked into the wheelhouse, swelling with self-importance, and began barking orders. The Caine dropped out of the screen and headed toward the transports. The roaring and blasting of the battleship salvos grew louder with each hundred yards that the Caine moved inward. The ensign was feeling a little dizzy and exalted, as though he had drunk a highball too quickly. He went from wing to wing, taking bearings on the APA, calling for radar ranges, shouting rudder changes with inebriated confidence.
A long line of attack boats emerged from the clusters around the APA and headed for the old minesweeper. Willie went looking for the captain and found him perched on a flagbag, out of sight of the transports and the beach, smoking, and chatting casually with Engstrand. “Sir, Jacob Group Four seems to be heading our way.”
“Kay.” Queeg glanced vaguely out to sea, and puffed at his cigarette.
Willie said, “What shall I do, sir?”
“Whatever you please,” said the captain, and giggled.
The ensign stared at his commanding officer. Queeg resumed telling an anecdote about the invasion of Attu to the signalman. Engstrand rolled his eyes momentarily at the officer of the deck, and shrugged.
Willie returned to the pilothouse. The attack boats were bumping toward the Caine in showers of spray. Peering through binoculars, Willie could see an officer standing in the stern of the leading boat with a large green megaphone under his arm. Spray flew all over his life jacket and khakis, and drenched the backs of the crouching marines in front of him. The glasses gave a prismatic blurriness to the boat and its occupants. Willie could see the men shouting at each other but could hear no sound; it was like a glimpse of a worn-out silent movie. He didn’t know what to do next. He thought the ship ought to be stopped but he was afraid to make such a command decision.
Maryk came into the wheelhouse. “Say, where’s the captain? We’re going to run those birds down!”
The ensign pointed out of the starboard doorway with his thumb. Maryk strode across and glanced back at the flagbag. “Well,” he said quickly. “All engines stop.” He took a battered red cardboard megaphone from a bracket under the port window, and walked out on the wing. The Caine slowed and rocked. “Boat-a-hoy,” Maryk called.
The officer in the attack boat called back, in a voice that came faintly over the water, young, strained, and unmistakably Southern, “Jacob Group Four. Ready to proceed to point of departure.”
Queeg poked his face in at the doorway of the pilothouse, exclaiming irritably, “What’s going on here? Who said anything about stopping? Who’s yelling to whom here?”
The executive officer shouted to the captain from the other wing, “Sorry, sir, it looked like we were overshooting these boys, so I stopped. It’s Jacob Four. They’re ready to proceed.”
“Well, all right,” called the captain. “Let’s get it over with, then. What’s course and distance to the point of departure?”
“Course 175, distance 4000, sir.”
“Kay, Steve. You take the conn and get us there.” Queeg disappeared. Maryk turned toward the attack boat, and the boat officer put his megaphone to his ear to catch the message. “We-will-proceed,” the executive officer boomed. “Follow-us. Good-luck.”
The boat officer waved the megaphone once, and crouched low in the boat as it began to churn forward again. His little landing craft was only fifty yards from the side of the Caine now. It was an LVT, one of the numerous land-and-water monsters evolved in World War II; a small metal boat incongruously fitted with caterpillar tracks. It could waddle on land or wallow through the sea for short distances, and though it could perform neither feat well,